A good morning read.

"We live with [past disappointments and present heartbreaks] as our 'crosses' (so we call them). Constantly we find ourselves slipping into bitterness and apathy and gloom as we reflect on them, which we frequently do. The attitude we show the world is a sort of dried-up stoicism, miles removed from the 'joy unspeakable and full of glory' which Peter took for granted that his readers were displaying (1 Peter 1:8). 'Poor souls,' our friends say of us, 'how they've suffered' - and that is just what we feel about ourselves! But these private mock heroics have no place at all in the minds of those who really know God. They never brood on might-have-beens; they never think of the things they have missed, only of what they have gained. 'What things were gain to me, these have I counted loss for Christ,' wrote Paul. 'Yea verily, and I count all things to be loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may gain Christ, and be found in him...that I may know him...' (Philippians 3:7-10). When Paul says he counts the things he lost 'dung', he means not merely that he does not think of them as having any value, but also that he does not live with them constantly in his mind: what normal person spends his time nostalgically dreaming of manure? Yes this, in effect, is what many of us do. It shows how little we have in the way of true knowledge of God."

Knowing God, J.I. Packer